His Blood On Your Hands, Tears In Your Eyes
by Hekate1308
Summary: Your hands shake every time you hurt him, but you have no choice. And you are starting to fear that you will be the one to break. Companion piece to "Your Blood On His Hands, Tears In His Eyes". Post-Reichenbach.


**Author's note: This is for teetotally, who requested a companion piece to "Your Blood On His Hands, Tears In His Eyes" and I realized that... yes, that wouldn't be a bad idea. I've been blind, really. Thanks for making me realize it. And for the fact that you are a wonderful reviewer.**

**I would definitely recommend that you read the other story first (mainly because this one ruins the surprise at the end of the other one), but it's not necessary. **

**I haven't uploaded anything for days... I've been busy with my studies. I hope you all had a wonderful week, though.**

**Warnings: torture, kidnapping, drugs.**

**I don't own anything, please review.**

You know he's there, you know he's suffering, you know he's just waiting for you. You know what he's going through. You try not to, but deleting things was easier before you died. Now, it's almost impossible, no matter what you do, no matter what you have to do. It's been almost three weeks, and despite the – despite the torture (always name things for what they are) he hasn't told you all he knows. Yet. One of these days, he will break, and you will be happy, ecstatic, because it will have brought you one step nearer to your goal, one step nearer to return home. And to reach this goal, you have to inflict pain. There is no other way. You've tried everything – you've tried deduction, you've tried bribery, you've even tried to get the police interested, but nothing worked, and you realized that you would have to get rid of this part of Moriarty's network all alone.

Once upon a time, it wouldn't have bothered you; you would have accepted this and all it entailed, you would have told yourself that it was the logical conclusion, the only solution to your problem.

Then again, once upon a time, you would never have found yourself in such a situation, because you wouldn't have jumped in the first place.

Or pretended to have jumped, which, now you come to think of it, is really the same thing.

And so you are stuck here, in your posthumous existence, alone, having to bring down each and every part of Moriarty's network, trying to tell yourself that it's fine, it's all fine, when you know, you know it isn't.

He's the key to this part of the web, you are sure of it. It's rather clever, you admit, to trust someone no one would ever suspect of having all the information. Necessarily, the young man must be rather intelligent. And, of course, he's ready to do anything, just to be someone. He probably thinks he'd going to succeed his boss, one day. And you have to admit the young man wouldn't be a bad choice.

He is loyal at least. He hasn't told you anything ever since you kidnapped – since you captured him, almost three weeks ago. No matter what you do. He screams, he begs, but he never tells you anything, and you're starting to fear that he never will. And if he doesn't – he is the only person the boss of the syndicate trusts (and you already know that the boss would never give away anything, even if you were to torture him for months), the only person who knows enough to ensure that his knowledge will bring down this part of the web for good. If you fail now, when you've only just begun – it seems almost unreal that, a few months ago, you lived in London, in Baker Street, with your only friend – you will have died, you will have given up your life for nothing, and that would just be inacceptable.

So you have to try again and again, have to make him scream again and again, and not even dying was as difficult as inflicting this pain.

You know that you would probably get more answers if you didn't try to make him comfortable. Or as comfortable as the situation allows. It would be easier to get answers if his room were cold and dirty, if he never got enough to eat or to drink, if you left the wounds untreated and only gave him antibiotics, so, while he wouldn't die of blood poisoning, the wounds wouldn't heal as easily. If he were aware of his situation, of every minute that passes, if he could feel –

But he can't really feel it, not between your "sessions" (as you call them, because not even you can call what you do by its real name) because you make sure there are enough drugs in his system at all times to ensure that he doesn't. True, you also give him drugs you hope will make him talk, because you fear that, if this goes on for much longer, he won't be the one to break. But you mostly give him drugs that, while they don't lessen his pain (at least while you're inflicting it – not that he feels much between your sessions, you treat his wounds after he's passed out, after all), certainly make him confused. He doesn't know what's going on most of the time, and it would be much, much easier to get what you need if he did.

So much easier. He would probably already have broken if he was constantly in pain and hungry and thirsty and cold. If he was sitting in the dark, scared, lost, helpless. If you could be cruel. Like you should be. Like everyone always believed you were.

But you, you who have always prided yourself on your logical mind, can't do what needs to be done, because somehow, now, after you have fought so long against it, you are clinging to your humanity. And being human means making him comfortable. Means cleaning his wounds. Making sure he has enough to eat. And giving him drugs that dull his perception of – of everything, really.

Of course you still do some things right – you never come at the same time of day so he will never get used to it, will always be waiting (or at least he would, if the drugs didn't make him incapable of realizing how much time passes). You have dyed and cut your hair, and you wear contact lenses. He wouldn't know you again, if he should ever see you on the street. Not that he will, because you know that you will have to kill him in the end. It's the sensible thing to do. Kill him. Make certain absolutely certain no one will ever find his body. You may not like it, but you will. Because if you want to win this game, the very last game you and Moriarty will ever play, you have to stick to the rules you have made for yourself.

One of them is to leave no witnesses behind.

Another is only to cut deep enough to cause pain. If you use your knife, that is. Sometimes you don't cut at all.

You prefer the knife, the open wounds. You don't like inflicting pain in other ways, leaving no traces.

You don't liked carving into someone's arm either, but it's easier, somehow. Maybe because there is a knife between you and him, some kind of barrier, and before you push it in, there is this one short period of time – you are reasonably sure it's too short to classify it – where you aren't inflicting pain yet, and you feel better for it without knowing the reason.

He never tells you anything, though. He ignores your questions. He just screams, and usually, just when you think you can't take it anymore, when his screams seem to fill the whole warehouse, when you know you'll have to stop any minute, because you just can't –

He grows silent and limp, and you take him back to his room and clean his wounds. Then you let him alone for a few hours, or maybe for a day, let him sleep, give him to eat, and then you try again.

And again. And again.

It's been almost three weeks, and it doesn't work.

And if it doesn't work –

Not only will you be lost in your existence as a living dead man forever, but you will have inflicted this pain for nothing, and you can't say which thought is more unbearable.

So you do it again and again, hurt him again and again, clean his wounds again and again, make him comfortable again and again only so can inflict more pain, and hope every day that today he will break, today he will tell you what you need to hear.

But it seems more and more unlikely, and it's even more difficult than usual today to walk to his cell. And, suddenly, you fear that today is the day one of you will break – but it won't be him. It will be you, and all you have done, and all you have put everyone who means something to you (you had to admit they do, you had to admit it the moment you realized that you would really have jumped, if there had been no alternative) through, everything will have been for nothing.

You swallow and drag him out. Thankfully, he's too drugged to realize that your hands are shaking even more than usual.

Because they shake every time. They shake when you cut, they shake when you make him bleed, they shake when he screams so loudly that the whole town should hear it, but, somehow, they don't. They shake because you don't want to do this, but you have to. You can control your eyes – before he starts screaming, he never looks at his wounds, never at the knife, never at your hands, but always either at the wall, or the ceiling, or your eyes, and you keep them absolutely calm – but not your hands.

He will be aware what's going on soon. When the pain sets in. You are going to use the knife today, because if you didn't, you would break, and you can't.

But instead –

For the first time since you brought him here, he looks at your hands as you make the first cut, and, just like that, suddenly, your eyes fill with tears, because you know that means he knows you don't want to do this, he knows that all he has to do is hold on, and you won't be able to do anything –

He has won, and all is lost, but still you continue to cut.

And then he looks up into your yes and sees your tears, and the first thing you realize is that, for once, his eyes are absolutely clear, despite the drugs coursing through his system. The second things is that he looks at you in a way no one ever really looked at you before, and you wonder if this is meant to tell you something.

And then he breaks.

He screams everything you need to know at you, screams it at the top of his lungs, and you have won, but you don't feel triumphant. Not at all. But you have won, all the same. You will be able to destroy this part of the web for good.

You leave the room and come back with a syringe full of tranquillizers. You don't want him to look at you when you pull the trigger.

You can't do it.

You can't kill him. After everything you have done to him, you can't.

And he doesn't know what you look like anyway. And he was drugged. At least that's what you tell yourself when you dump him somewhere you're sure he will be found.

You destroy enough evidence about his involvement to ensure that he will only spend a few years in jail. You don't bother inventing a reason for it.

A few days later, after you have contacted the police (anonymously, of course), made sure everyone who's important is in jail and killed the boss (really, one should think the police would be able to catch someone when you give them enough information) and you are on your way to the next country, the next part of the network, you think about your captive, and you find yourself hoping that he'll be able to turn his life around.

He saw your tears, after all.


End file.
